Snake vs Financial Ruin
by SamandMax
Summary: Snake is forced to face his most challenging opponent yet, bankruptcy, when he realizes he has no money whatsoever.


Otacon watched as Snake lit the cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. Well, it wasn't a cigarette per se, it was more a piece of white chalk Snake had drawn on with yellow marker to make it look like it had a filter, but Snake smoked it anyway.

"I'm lving the high life Otty," Snake leaned back in his wicker chair and rolled the "cigarette" around in his mouth which left a clearly visible white chalky smudge on his lips. "You've got nothing to worry about."

"Snake, I can clearly tell you've lit a piece of chalk and stuck it in your mouth to look like a cigarette. Don't act like you're not having money problems," Otacon replied.

"Money problems? Absolutely not. You saw me eating that huge expensive steak before."

Otacon shook his head, "Nah, I kinda noticed you were just cutting up a picture of a steak from a magazine."

"What!" Snake sat up shocked. "How could you tell!?!?"

"Well for starters your steak was not a three dimensional object, it was a piece of paper. That was suspicious."

Snake threw his hands up in defeat. "You caught me red handed. I'm dirt poor. Well, that's not true either. I tried to rent some dirt from a quarry and I didn't have enough money."

"Oh Snake...you poor, poor pathetic washed up loser. What happened to all your money? You used to be rich, you used to burn money in your chimney because you wanted hobos to see the smoke of money being completely wasted."

"Poor investments mainly. Lots of bad stock advice, it really did a number on my bank account. Also, I burned about thirty million dollars in my chimney. In retrospect that was not a good idea," Snake took another hit from his chalk. "And you know how Scrooge McDuck used to swim around in his money? Well I bought a duck and I threw him into a huge pile of my money to see if he'd swim in it but apparently coins are sharper than I imagined because the duck kind of exploded in a huge bloody mess when I tossed him in."

Otacon stared in disgusted awe.

"So I was left with all this duck blood on my money and it wasn't coming out! I tried javex, I tried bleach, I tried just putting it in the washing machine but nothing could get this duck blood out of my money. No bank would take it, apparently there's some rule against having animal blood on your cash, so now I'm stuck with all this tainted money I can't use. It's horrible," Snake dropped the chalk cigarette to the ground and stepped on it to put it out. "You wouldn't happen to be interested in purchasing ten million dollars in blood soaked money would you?"

"No thanks," Otacon shook his head to get the mental images out of his mind. "So Snake, I knew you were in need of a job so that's what I came here today. I've got a great opportunity for you!"

Snake nodded. "I guess I can't pretend like I'm not in desperate need of any job you have so please, continue."

"How would you like to be appear as a special celebrity guest at the opening of a brand new Wal-Mart in Maine!" Otacon raised his fists in trumph to create some excitement for the job. "It'll be great! There's gonna be free cake and coffee and everything will be 5 off for you because you're such a big guest! And, most importantly and most awesomely, the band you're gonna be appearing before is...STYX!"

Snake and his chair flew back into the wall exploding into splinters of wood and geysers of blood as the news floored him. He pulled himself up and brushed the wood chunks off his clothes and pulled a splinter from his chest. "Styx? Hell yeah, this sounds like the best job I've ever had."

"I don't know about that. You've saved the world from chaos a few times before, that was pretty cool."

"Screw that shit, I get to work with Dennis DeYoung of Styx! That guy's a genius! Have you never heard 'Mr. Roboto' or 'Lady' or 'Come Sail Away'? These are the defining songs of my generation and getting to work with the genius, no, SUPERgenius behind them is the opportunity of a lifetime. I should be paying THEM to get to work with such an incredible band."

"Ok Snake, I get the po-"

"Do you dare interrupt me while I'm giving a speech on Styx!?"

"Well I've caught the message you're getting across, Styx are great an-"

"You know what? I hope you get cancer and die because interrupting someone while they're monologuing about Styx is probably the worst thing you could ever do, worse even than causing a genocide. I suggest you get off my property right now before I get my shotgun and blow you away."

"Uh...ok. But remember, May 25th, that's the day of the opening. Make sure you're in Maine on tha-"

"I'm not getting any less shotgunny. I suggest you vamoose right now."

Otacon backed away in fear at Snake squinted at him with intensity usually only seen on a cheetah in the wild. He slid into his Mazada Miata and sped off in terror, honking his horn and giving a polite wave as a friendly farewell gesture.

* * *

Snake slid the headband over his forehead and threw a few punches into the wind to get pumped up. He could hear the speaker outside beginning his introduction so he hit the button on the smoke machine and gave his body one last shake to get the jitters out.

"Yo, Big G in the sky," Snake quietly prayed as he looked up. "Just wanna say thanks for the good life and all that junk and if you could bless my performance today so everyone thinks I'm as badass as you, that'd be cool as ice. Thanks G. Give a shout out to Jesus for me."

Snake heard them call out his name out front so he took one final breath and pushed his way through the curtains. The audience of 85 cheered wildly as Snake emerged through the fog wearing his headband and purple track suit and Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' exploded loudly out of the speakers.

"What up Maine!" Snake screamed into the mic, the audience going hog wild like an audience seeing the movie Wild Hogs and going hog wild for it.

"Ya'll know who I am, right?" he yelled again, most of the audience responding 'yes!'. "That's right, the hero that saved your asses from Metal Gear. YOU'RE WELCOME!"

Snake motioned for his stage hand who came out with Snake's trusty keytar and slung it over his shoulder like a rifle. For the next 20 minutes the audience watched in stunned silence as Snake performed a freeystyle keytar jam he called 'El Chupacabra's Revenge'. When he finally finished and the fireworks went off into the sky the audience cheered, mostly out of confusion and pity.

"Thanks ya'll," Snake grinned as he smashed the keytar on an amp which is something even less impressive to see than you can imagine. "Now that we got the rockin' out of the way I'd like to tell you about the great savings you're gonna be having at this here Wal-Mart. You see, Wal-Mart believ-"

A man in a poorly made Metal Gear cardboard costume stomped onto stage and ruined the rest of Snake's message. The audience gasped in pure shock.

Snake chuckled, "Heh, looks like Metal Gear here doesn't like Wal-Mart!"

The crowd booed and threw their free cake at the poorly made robot except for one man who threw his free coffee and burnt the faces of 10 people in the front row.

"Alright Metal Gear," Snake turned to face it. "I want you to get the heck out of here or I'm going to have to take you down a notch in front of all these fine Wal-Mart shoppers."

In slow robotic moves Metal Gear lifted his cardboard arm to give Snake the finger. The audience watched this horrifying confrontation in shocked silence.

"Alright Metal Gear, don't say I didn't warn you. Nobody insults Wal-Mart when I'm around and gets away with it!"

Snake threw a fake punch which clearly missed by a metre and Metal Gear fell backwards defeated. Snake began pumping his fists into the air in victory as the audience cheered "Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart!" in unison.

"Now that he's out of commission, let's find out who this Metal Gear really is!" Snake said to the audience.

He lifted the Metal Gear onto his feet and pulled the mask off revealing Dennis DeYoung of Styx. The crowd of now 60 went insane with glee as Dennis waved to them.

"Domo Aragoto, Mr. Roboto!' Snake said to Dennis which was hilarious to EVERYONE IN THE WORLD!

The rest of Styx emerged from the fog behind them and the opening chords of 'Mr. Roboto' echoed through the Wal-Mart parking lot. Snake vanished off the stage for a few seconds before coming back out with his keytar set to full volume and began to drown out everyone else. The smile on Dennis' face slowly faded into bitter fury and by the end of the song he was clearly insane with rage.

"Snake, what the hell are you doing?" Dennis yelled at him covering the mic with his hand. "You had your time in the spotlight, it's a Styx-travaganza now."

"I wanna rock out with you guys! I've been practicing all your songs on my keytar, I know them all by heart now!" Snake struck a cool pose with his keytar which left the crowd swooning.

"Where did you even get that keytar from? You broke yours before."

"I carry many keytars with me at all times!" Snake shouted back. "Do not question me Dennis!"

The crowd clearly realized something was wrong at this point especially as Dennis and Snake were now currently engaged in a fistfight up on the stage. With one of them being the metrosexual lead singer of a shitty prog rock band and the other being an ex-soldier who battled numerous robots and assassins, it was pretty easy to tell who would win the fight.

* * *

Snake woke up in the hospital in a full body cast and in extreme pain. Otacon rushed over as he saw his eyes open and sighed in relief.

"Oh Snake, we thought you were a goner," he cried. "Dennis DeYoung brutally beat you within inches of your life. It's a miracle you're still alive."

Snake tried to keep his heady eyelids up. "It was...so horrible. I tried using my CQC on him but he just kept beating on me...and beating on me...he was the toughest enemy I've ever faced and I've faced a dead vampire dude."

"Well it's ok now Snake. In 4 years time your physical therapy will be up and you'll be better than new," Otacon said with a smile. "And plus with the massive lawsuit we lay against Styx, your money problems will be gone for good."

"So that's the moral of the story then," Snake muttered, every breath causing him excrutiating pain. "Getting the shit kicked out of you by Styx will lead to a happier life. It looks like that fortune cookie was right."

And with that, Snake drifted back into his pain-induced sleep. And then drifted into an 8-year long coma. But when he woke up from that everything was peachy. Except for the 4 years of demanding physical therapy. But after that everything was great.


End file.
